Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Pine-apple Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pineapple
Mash preserved pineapple with sugar and lemon juice to taste.
Cut raw pineapple into pieces and bruise in a mortar. Add sugar and lemon juice to the bruised pineapple and mix well.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
Make and freeze the ice cream
Combine with cream and a little milk, then mix thoroughly.
Freeze the mixture until solid.
Optionally, add a few slices of preserved pineapple when serving.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Pineapple + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together885 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Pineapple + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,964 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pineapple
- Provides the main flavor and fruit body of the ice cream.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the mixture and lowers its freezing point, keeping the ice cream softer.
- Cream
- Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture that resists large ice crystals.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the pineapple flavor.
The step that matters
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving removes fibrous pulp and bits of pineapple so the frozen ice cream is smooth rather than gritty or stringy.
Swap the pineapple
The recipe marks pineapple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, cream, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Orangefits better
- Pineapplethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, cream, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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